Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Boycotting the Boycott

the Evangelical Outpost has a great post on the issue of boycotting. I think that it has been overdone. My son boycotts Wal-Mart for various reasons: labor relations, use of underpaid labor by vendors. Me, I avoid shopping there because I don't like having to walk sideways on an aisle that has no other shoppers on it.
The fact is that boycotts have become so overused it's hard to know where I'm supposed to not shop or what I'm not supposed to buy from one week to the next. My favorite was the time the United Methodist Church's Board of Church and Society urged Methodists not to smoke a particular brand of cigarettes because they don't use union labor. Nothing wrong with that on the surface, until you realize that the use of tobacco is discouraged in the church's Social Principals.
Now, EO contends that boycotting is a non-Christian act because it is an act of force. Non-violent force to be sure, but force nonetheless. I am not willing to go quite that far. I do believe that more judicious use of boycotting should be considered. As it is now we have way too many calls to boycott to the point that the boycotts have become a joke. You have the AFA calling for boycotts for just about any perceived transgression that the act has, quite frankly, become meaningless.

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